A Wee Walk

Over consumption is destroying our environment. That was the message Caroline McNally presented in her recent photobook 'Please Recycle'. How many pointless things do we own?

Rosemary and I don't drive. I'm often asked "how do you cope without a car?". Easy peasy.....I've never had one so I haven't had not to cope. Apart from the financial side, there are many advantages. Partially thanks to Rosemary who's love of outside and of maps means that we explore the local area by foot.

Our walk today was a great one, despite me being really tired. Within two minutes, we're on wooded paths in the Etherow Valley. It soon dawned on me that our wee walk wasn't going to be so wee. Rosemary wanted to take me on her run route from a few days earlier which had taken her 90 minutes! That suggested we would be out for around 4 hours....

I wouldn't have minded, but yesterday we had such a busy day, and today, after a long lie, I had spent several hours doing the garden. This was a necessity as it hadn't been done all winter. The weather was nice but we hadn't taken any kit on the walk with us. After lunch had worn off, I started to get a wee bit hungry and thirsty. By Etherow Country Park I was struggling to keep going and fighting to stay in a good mood.

It was really cold by the time we hit the high point of the walk, overlooking one of my favourite places, Coombes Edge. There's not much up there apart from wind and the odd bird of prey and some hill sheep. Not much grows....but for some reason I feel at peace with the earth when I'm up there.

My mood improved substantially when we started our decent towards the village. Rosemary's hands were freezing despite having lobster claw gloves on. There was quite a bit of snow on the ground and the wind was biting but somehow I didn't feel so bad. I was pleased with a cuppa when I got home.....over 12km of walking with 600m of ascent on the wee walk. Humph.....if Rosemary every says we're going on a long one, I will pack 6 months worth of supplies and hire a Sherpa! I